UK News Thousands of seven-year-olds struggle with schoolwork.

Tens of thousands of seven-year-olds are struggling to master the three Rs, official figures show. The new statistics reveal that after three years of schooling many children can read only the easiest words, such as "cat" or "dog", and do the very simplest sums.

Almost 106,000 seven-year-olds have failed to reach level 2 – the standard expected of the age group – in writing. More than 83,000 pupils have a reading age of a five-year-old or lower. And over 58,000 children are falling behind the expected standard in maths.

The figures, published by the Department for Education, are based on teachers' assessments of pupil achievement at the age of seven.

They show that 85% reached the expected level or higher in reading, 81% achieved it in writing, 90% made at least level 2 in maths and 89% reached it in science. These figures are broadly the same as last year.


Something's definitely wrong with the education. May also affect other countries around the world.

Not only in UK, but in all developing/developed countries too. Not too sure about less developed countries though...
I'm telling you, they're giving too much for us to learn. The human body isn't suited for this.

When I was at the first grade the information stream wasn't overwhelming.
There will always be pupils who fall below the average because it's mathematically impossible for everyone to be over the average.

They're talking about expected levels, not averages.

Maybe they just like playing video games more? They are just 7 years old after all.

so.. what are the 3 R's?
Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic? no wonder the kid's can't learn anything, the adults are idiots

edit:
they should re-name the acronym W.A.R. (writing, arithmetic, and reading), and then declare war on poor education

Varine said:

They're talking about expected levels, not averages.

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Oops. But still, if you can't keep up with others, the teacher should always be there to support you.

Slapshot136 said:

so.. what are the 3 R's?
Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic? no wonder the kid's can't learn anything, the adults are idiots

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So true.

Well in Denmark we go to school when we are 6, and most children can spell those words if not more in 2nd grade Yay for lack of unneeded education!

How on earth are our youngsters supposed to learn how to read and write
when some of teachers show very poor ability themselves. eh?

Slapshot136 said:

so.. what are the 3 R's?
Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic? no wonder the kid's can't learn anything, the adults are idiots

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when i was in elementary school it was respect, responsibility, and the readiness to learn. we also has reduce reuse and recycle.

Slapshot136 said:

so.. what are the 3 R's?

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Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

It may be a play on 3 types of R-sound spellings... considering it's meant for beginners they likely have issues with 'Wr' and silent A's... assuming the A is actually silent as I was unaware of that.

when i was seven i was busting out my sick APM

Slapshot136 said:

so.. what are the 3 R's?
Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic? no wonder the kid's can't learn anything, the adults are idiots

edit:
they should re-name the acronym W.A.R. (writing, arithmetic, and reading), and then declare war on poor education

Click to expand...

lol.

also...

How on earth are our youngsters supposed to learn how to read and write
when some of teachers show very poor ability themselves. eh?

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How are Firecats supposed to learn how to read and write?

Vellu said:

Oops. But still, if you can't keep up with others, the teacher should always be there to support you.

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They should be, but most of the time they are not. Although a lot of this comes down to parents as well; I have friends who don't spend much time trying to teach their kids for whatever reason, and assume that the school teaches them. I also went to a couple of those parent teacher meetings where they discuss the kid's progress, and I was amazed at the idiocy of the way they teach things. I asked why they don't use the actual terms in math (like WTF is the chunking method? I couldn't help my kid with it because that's not a real god damn method of solving anything, at least not one that I've heard of and I'm pretty good at math, and the kids probably can't explain what it actually is, or else they wouldn't need help...), and was told that "It would be too complicated for them". My response was something to the effect of it wouldn't be that hard if you didn't make shit up that only applies to a small selection of problems and confuse them (I was confused by whatever the hell they're doing), and then was told that I didn't understand how a child's mind works. Then was asked to leave. I'm going to tutor one of my friend's newborn once he's a bit older in math primarily to see if I can teach him Calculus by the time he's in middle school. Then I'm going to use it as proof that the school system blows.

Like when I was little I read my mom bedtime stories instead of her reading to me usually, and I thought that everyone did that and didn't understand why we had to go over the extreme basics for a long time. Same thing with math, my parents aren't that good at it but they could teach me basic algebra the normal way (using actual variables and not smiley and frownie faces and shit), and I couldn't really adjust to the weird methods I was supposed to use in school. That, I think, started my boredom and subsequent bad grades throughout most of school: we would be assigned a book and given a week to read it or so, and I would finish it in a day or two, then move onto a different book and forget what the first one was about so would fail the tests on it.

If you're right there, Var, some school systems need a total reset. I can imagine the confusion of learning first the "chunking" method and then being told that it's something other (the real term).

Ps. I remember my first math lessons when I was 7. We wrote down numbers to learn how to write them. 8, 8, 8, 8 and 8 all over again. My wrist was sore after all those writing practises. THEN we moved on to basic 1+1 calculations, then substraction, multiplying and dividing. We used to have small exams to make sure we learned to multiply with 1-10. Oh the times.

The real term is division, I believe.

Varine said:

The real term is division, I believe.

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I honestly still don't know the difference between "long division" and "short? division".. but I am pretty sure I can do both if I get a math problem that requires it

Slapshot136 said:

I honestly still don't know the difference between "long division" and "short? division".. but I am pretty sure I can do both if I get a math problem that requires it

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Long division = Division with multiple digit numbers
Short division = Division with shorter numbers

UndeadDragon said:

Long division = Division with multiple digit numbers
Short division = Division with shorter numbers

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It actually changes between countries. Here in the US, long division uses the table thing, where in most other countries it uses the obelus. And I believe that 'chunking' basically uses a long series of substractions, but in a retarded ass way.